I Want To Believe Dept: Yetis and UFOs

Two articles this Monday morning, both relating to our need to believe in things that don't exist. Both come from Discovery News.

First, a team of Japanese explorers claim to have found footprints belonging to the legendary (and non-existent) Yeti, aka the Abominable Snowman. Why seemingly intelligent modern scientists would continue to search for a creature which has no basis in reality beyond folklore is inexplicable to me. Humans do have a great need to explain the unknown, but to explain an unknown that is a human fabrication is futile.

Another article today deals with the long history of UFO sightings, mostly in Britain. The British military has released an excruciatingly long document debunking UFO sightings from the 80's and 90's. I've always had a wondrous need to believe that there is life somewhere in the universe other than here on our planet. I still believe with the sheer size of the universe, there's got to be something else out there. But, I don't feel the need to attribute every single weird meteorological or aviary phenomenon to intra-galactic travel.